Manuel Pellegrini placed a lot of his faith in Samir Nasri when he was brought out of the wilderness in January, and recent comments published on the club’s official website hints at one of the main reasons why.
The Frenchman has been discussing how a strong mental focus can help the players deliver results, which could eventually lead to trophies or European football.
Nasri knows all about tackling sides from across the continent and winning leagues and cups from his time with Arsenal and then at Manchester City, but his claims suggest the squad does not have the same mentality – yet.
“It’s a mentality – if you want to be a big club, you need to think like a big club. The manager says it all the time and it’s true,” claimed the 31-year-old.
“For instance, I think that we don’t have to be inferior or think if we lose one-nil to Manchester City that it’s a good result. To be a big club and to achieve things, we need to play Manchester City the same way we play Newcastle.
“Only by playing and thinking like that will we get results. Look at Ajax in the week. Ajax went to Real Madrid, didn’t say ‘they are triple winners of the Champions League’, they just went there, played football and they beat them.
“With the quality that we have, we shouldn’t be looking at other clubs and thinking ‘if we only lose one-nil it’s a good result’. We should go anywhere and try to play our football.”
The suggestion that West Ham suffers from a small club mentality will not be pleasant to hear but he does have a point – Pellegrini has spoken of the very same mindset on several occasions already this season.
For too long now we’ve been settling for mediocrity or worse but now, under Pellegrini, we have the opportunity to really push on and achieve something special.
We’ve seen glimpses of that big team mentality this season and if Nasri’s mindset can rub off on the rest of the players, his addition to the squad could be far more important in terms of contribution off the pitch, let alone on it.
